


You Is A Safe Word

by roguelightning



Category: The Order (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26380708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguelightning/pseuds/roguelightning
Summary: Vera's thoughts on the word "you"
Relationships: Hamish Duke/Vera Stone
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	You Is A Safe Word

Vera had always thought You was a safe word. It was short, rolled up nicely of her tongue, and, most of all, it was conveniently ambiguous.

“Will _you_ heed the call?” She had asked, the words almost an automatism to her after so many years, and she had pretended she had addressed that question to all the four new acolytes. And she had; she just happened to care more about recruiting the head of the pack more than the rest. It was just business, really.

"I’m seriously considering killing _you_ both”, she had said on an exasperated tone. It hadn’t been a lie – killing both of them did sound appealing at the moment. And if there was a part of her that had wondered whether killing a werewolf with sex magic was a possibility, her usage of the word had hidden that.

_"You_ can clean that up”, she had instructed them, and for once she had regretted using the plural. It wasn’t that Hamish hadn’t deserved the cleaning part, just like the rest of his friends, but the hurt look he had thrown her almost made her feel sorry for him. By the way he had looked at her, he had been either dreaming up new cocktail recipes or dreaming of her – probably a combination of both – and a part of her felt bad for interrupting him. The word had started to betray Vera lately, however.

_"You_ over here, _you_ , with me”, she had said, handing out instructions like she had always done, the difference in tonality between her two usages of the word almost imperceptible to anyone but her. Still, it had been there. She had to be more careful in the future.

It got worse when she spat “How dare _you_?" after one of the acolytes accused her of being Hamish's girlfriend. That was the reaction everyone expected from her, of course, but she had no idea who she had spat at and why. At that stupid acolyte, at Hamish for not defending her, or at that pesky part of her that had enjoyed the term?

On his lips though, the word was downright dangerous. The first time she had paid attention to him saying it was when he had been so close to her that he had been practically breathing on her neck.

_"You_ do a spell wrong, I stub my toe”, he had said casually, and her first instinct was to pretend she had been insulted. It was preferable to thinking how good the word had sounded on his lips. Actually it was preferable to her thinking about his lips in general, about how swollen they were because of her kisses or how her lipstick was smeared all over them.

It took great skill to change words, to turn them into magic. So, when he had told her “It’s ok to let someone care about _you”,_ the word impossibly soft on his lips, she knew that it hadn’t been magic. No, the warmth that flooded her veins at that had nothing to do with witchcraft. The alternative was too dangerous, however, so she had done the only thing she could. She had pushed him away, hoping he was going to get the message.

It was too late, however. He had already stolen the word from her, drained it of all its ambiguity. Now, whenever she said it with him around, she knew the plural was out of question. It was only him and not Jack who she urged to leave, to let her alone with Alyssa. It was him who she wanted to be safe more than anything else. It was him she wanted next to her, to help her until she got her magic back. And when she took his hand, saying “I need _you”,_ the word barely a whisper on her lips, she knew the word was never going to be safe for her again. 


End file.
